An Unexpected Adventure

Friday evening while watching the weather report for the storm coming in, Trent and I got into a years old discussion about the Mason Dixon line. Ever since moving to Virginia, we occasionally ask each other where exactly the Mason Dixon line runs. Friday, we pulled out the laptop and looked it up once and for all. (I love reliable wireless internet.)

Like most Americans, Trent and I always thought the Mason Dixon line was the line that separated the North from the South. We could just never remember whether it included Maryland or was the border between Maryland and Virginia. While our understanding is not completely incorrect as the Missouri Compromise, drawing the line between slave and free territory, used the Mason Dixon line for a reference, we had no idea of the full history.

The Mason Dixon line goes back to the 17th century in which the King of England (Charles I) gave the first Lord of Baltimore, George Calvert, the colony of Maryland. Fifty years later Charles II gave the colony of Pennsylvania to William Penn. The descriptions of the boundaries in the separate grants did not match, so there was, of course, a land dispute that went to the British Court. In 1750, the court determined the boundary, and a decade later, the families accepted it. There followed a need to survey and mark the boundary. Colonial surveyors not up to the task, they sent for someone from Great Britain. An astronomer and a surveyor (Mason and Dixon) marked out the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland and marked it with limestone markers. Every mile a marker was placed with a P on the Pennsylvania side and an M on the Maryland side. Every 5 miles, the marker had the Penn coat of arms on the Pennsylvania side and the Calvert coat of arms on the Maryland side. There was an ACTUAL Mason Dixon line. The stones are disappearing, but there are some working to preserve it as much as possible.

I used to make a bit of fun of the Maryland state flag. I thought it looked like a race car flag. After Trent's and my discovery, I now know it comes from the Calvert coat of arms, and I have a new appreciation for it and the history behind it. Trent and I were really excited to learn this previously unknown (to us anyhow) bit of history and are really looking forward to heading a little north when it gets warmer to see if we can find the Mason Dixon line. We are looking forward to this unexpected adventure.